19th WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SCALE RACING - LUND- Aug 13-14

PETR KRCIL WORLD CHAMP SCALE RACING

ÅBERG SECOND - BRITISH & ITALIAN RACERS AGAIN NOWHERE

August 13 - Let's tank God that not the scheduled 101 racers started at the so called 19th World Championship Scale Racing in Lund, but only 83, what means at least 18 field fillers less. And it is a strange world, that ISRA world, where the rest of the world was reduced to ...two racers: "Gugu" Bernardino and Herman James. Thanks to "Gugu" that rest takes at least any volume. So no Paul Gawronski (USA), no Dave Gick (NZ), no Jaroslav Recek (CZ), no Frantisek Poledna (CZ), no Mikail Radkovic (CZ), no Gustav Heymann (RSA), no Salvatore Noviello (I), no Giovanni Montiglio (I), no George Kimber (GB), no Greg Gilbert (USA), no Paul Harwood (GB), no Paul Ciccarello (USA), no Philip Helmuth (USA), no Tracy Chin (USA), no Lucas Folk (CZ), no Chris Radisich (NZ), no Paul 'Split' Heath (NZ), no Kimmo Rautama (SF), no Mike "Tomato" (USA), etc. But lots of Swedes and Latvians filling the emty seats. Not the number of entrants is important, well the quality of the entrants and their spread over the globe. I cannot deny that Mia Ekman & Co did a great job on organising this ISRA Worlds, but due to the conservatism of ISRA those Worls are rather a joke where nearly everything is predictable. Do you want the names of the 8 finalists one day before the Main? Here they come: 1. Vladimir Horky, 2. Josef Korec, 3. Michael Landrud, 4. Einari Fyhr, 5. Matti Fyhr, 6. Lasse Åberg, 7. Anders Gustafson and 8. Tomas Rosenberg. That means 3 Czechs, 3 Swedes and 2 Finns.
Where are the Brittons? Nowhere. Of their best four Brian Saunders qualified as 11th, Lee Parsons (the 124 BOC winner) as 20th, James Cleave as 28th and Charlie Gooding as 32nd. Only Saunders seems able to join the Main.
Where are the Italians? After his splendid come-back at the German Masters, where he won the two races, Paolo Trigilio contests the worst ISRA Worlds of his life. Now he qualified only as 26th. Only Piero Castricone - 12th at the Qualifications - has a small chance to make the Main. But Battistini is only 40th, Bertocchi only 46th, Niccoilai as low as 67th! Where are the glorious days with Sergio Maresca, Alberto Capra, Giuseppe Rudilosso, Giavanni Montiglio, Franco Gianotti, Bruno Novarese, Angelo Magnani, Silvio Giacobbi, etc. dominating the Scale Racing Worlds in earlier times. Remember Chicago 1989 where they were trusting the 6 first places!
And where is the rest of the world? Herman James qualified as low as 30th, "Gugu" even lower on rank 46.
Of the Baltic Army only Andris Podosinoviks makes a small chance reaching the Main after having qualified as 13th. But Janis Rage-Ragis was only 36th at the Qualifications. Eventually there was only one surprise: Ukraine's young Ihor Kuropy qualifying in 4"572 as 8th. All other results were fully predictable. Vladimir Horky TQ-ed in 4"345 and seems on his way to a fabulous 5th world championship's title. Josef Korec was third in 4"434, Thomas Rosenberg 7th in 4"510. The Fyhr Bros realised 4"457 (Einari) and 4"499 (Matti), being ranked 4th and 6th. 
Among the Swedes defending world champion Michael Landrud realised 4"581 (9th). But what a progress made Sweden's most professional wing car racers: 4"423 (2nd) for Gustafson and 4"462 (5th) for Åberg.

F.l.t.r. Lasse Åberg - proving which all-rounder he is -, the unexpected new world champion Petr Krcil and Vladimir Horky. Within one week we'll find them back at the IMCA Nats.

CONSIS: TRIGILIO, JAMES & GUGU ALREADY OUT
With Vladimir Jorky (CZ), Josef Korec (CZ), Anders Gustafson (S) and Einari Fyhr (SF) being free as four fastest qualifiers, the remaining 79 racers had to contest one of the 10 consis. Here the British and Italian racers - having been nowhere in the previous races in Lund - had their last chance to prove that they have still a place on the international scene. For the Italians the Consis were a pure sisaster, since only Piero Castricone succeeded to reach the Semis (with 24 racers). Paolo Trigilio - for who this ISRA Worlds were full of disappointment - finished as first non qualified racer. The British racers did it better since their top-4 finished among the top-24 with James Cleave, Brian Saunders, Lee Parsons and Charlie Gooding.
Of all Swedes only Anders Gustafson (free from Consis), Michael Landrud, Lasse Åberg and the surprising Mikael Gustavsson were the four ones to make the move; Janne Ekman once more came no further than the Consis. Much better performed the Czechs with 9 of their racers in the top-24: Horky, Korec, Rosenberg, Krcil, Vojtik, Martin Hojer, Karlik, Flaisig and Vadlejch. Finland saw (of course) the Fyhr Bros making the move. Latvia had two qualified racers: Andris Podosinoviks and Aivis Ruks (but no Janis Rage-Ragis). Ukraine had Ihor Kuropiy placed (but no Valentin Iskandorov). Lithuania had Arunas Leonavicius (but no Simas Nemira). Other countries as Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Slovakia, Malta had no one. And the rest of the world, those two non-Europeans? Herman James (USA) had to retire after 192 laps and "Gugu" Bernardino was found among the back-benchers.  So the situation after the Consis was: 9 from Czechia, 4 from Sweden and the UK, 2 from Finland and Latvia, 1 from Italy, 1 from Lithuania and 1 from Ukraine. Among the eliminated racers we found among others Milos Hojer (CZ), Mangi Prokop (SVK), Vlado Okali (SVK), Kennet Signal (S), Stefan Törnfeldt (S), etc.

SEMIS: DEBÂCLE FOR THE BRITISH RACERS
At the Semis we lost the four British racers, three of them with technical problems (Saunders, Gooding and Parsons, finishing at the three last places of the Semis). Only James Cleave could finish his race, finishing 12th overall, thus not making the move to the Main Final. The same happened with the last survivor among the Italians, Piero 'Il Bandito' Castricone, coming no further than an 18th place. Those disappointing performances prove that the UK and Italy have no longer a major rôle to play in international scale racing. So why continuing an ISRA government by the very conservative Britons? Is it not time that Czechia, Finland and Sweden can govern ISRA?
Effectively, once more only racers from Czechia (5), Sweden (2) and Finland (1) reached the Main Final. Compared to my prognostics only Anders Gustafson (11th) and Einari Fyhr (9th) were not in. Einari missed the move for less than one lap. Podosinoviks (LV) finished 10th as predicted. Only surprises in the main were Petr Krcil (extremely strong at all his races in Lund) and Antónin Vojtik (the #1 candidate to win this year the Mello Yello Juniors World championship).
It's obvious, without a Paul Gawronski (USA), without a Salvatore Noviello (I), without a David Gick (NZ), without a Gustav Heymann (RSA) at the start international scale racing is reduced to a monotonuous play among Czechs, Finns and Swedes. Should someone opens his eyes for the hundreds of G12 scale racers in the world - someone not suffering from the same blindness as Charlie Gooding - scale racing should again be an unpredictable business, not some kind as speciality where before the start 7 out of the 10 first can be predicted. My viewpoint is: let Gooding continue and within 5 years we have ISRA Worlds with 8 Czechs on the 8 first places.

Immediately after the start of the first segment it became obvious that Michael Landrud should not prologe his world champion's title in Lund. His car missed speed. Setting the pace were Matti Fyhr and Petr Krcil. After the first segment Matti Fyhr had 2 laps over Krcil. Åberg, Horky and Rosenberg were already 3 laps down. After a desastrous segment on the outer lane Korec followed already on 8 laps. Landrud was 7th on 5 laps.
During the second segment a brilliant Matti Fyhr increased his advance over all racers except the quadruple scale racing world champion Vladimir Horky.
During the third segment Matti had to go to the slower outer lane, and it could be feared that he should be passed by Horky on the faster lane 5. However that didn't happen. Only Petr Krcil could come back in the same lap. After 3 segments out of 8 standings were: 1. Matti Fyhr (SF) 186 laps, 2. Petr Krcil (CZ) 186 laps, 3. Antónin Vojtik (CZ) 183 laps, 4. Vladimir Horky (CZ) 182 laps, 5. Lasse Åberg (S) 182 laps, 6. Tomas Rosenberg (CZ) 180 laps, 7. Josef Korec (CZ) 178 laps, 8. Michael Landrud (S) 173 laps. 
After his convincing victory in 132F1 nobody doubted any longer that Matti Fyhr was the racer to be. However during the fourth segment Matti's car showed the first sign of fatigue. Since the race could be followed on computer thanks to the installed web cam (a good initiative should race director Andy Wasserman had tought on the spectators instead of speaking for his own) one could see Matti in the intersegment from 3-4 lokking at his car with an uneasy face. 
And effectively, on lane 6 Matti lost no less than § laps on both Petr Krcil and Lasse Åberg. At mid-race we had a complete new situation: 1. Petr Krcil 250 laps, 2. Lasse Åberg 244 laps, 3. Matti Fyhr 244 laps, 4. Vladimir Horky 243 laps, 5. Antónin Vojtik 242 laps, 6. Josef Korec 240 laps, 7. Tomas Rosenberg 238 laps, 8. Michael Landrud 227 laps.
Drama during the fifth segment when Fyhr had to come into the pits. When after this segment Åberg was always 5 laps down to Krcil and Horky 9 it became at once obvious that the unexpected Krcil was on his way to victory lane. During the last three segments the double wing car world champion could reduce his arrears by 3 more laps, to die at 2 small laps from the Czech. Horky finished third on 8 laps. Eventually Krcil and Matti Fyhr were the two best racers of the Main, but Petr had a more reliable car than Matti and became the new world champion. [JPVR]

28th EURONATS ES32 - LUND (S) - Aug 11-12

JOSEF KOREC BEATS HIS MASTER

CZECH ARMY SMASHES ALL FIELD FILLERS INTO PIECES

August 12 - In total 77 racers started at the 28th ES32 EuroNats. More than 50 among them were pure field fillers having nothing lost at such race. Among the absentees we noted Paul Gawronski (USA), Dave Gick (NZ), Jaroslav Recek (CZ), Frantisek Poledna (CZ), Mikail Radkovic (CZ), Salvatore Noviello (I), Giovanni Montiglio (I), George Kimber (GB), Greg Gilbert (USA), Paul Harwood (GB), Paul Ciccarello (USA), Philip Helmuth (USA), 'Gugu' Bernardino (BR) - all ranked among the top-30 of scale racers. ES32 is a British invention, extremely expensive, and only left on the calendar thanks to the conservatism of ISRA Chairman Charlie Gooding, who refuses since years to replace that race by PR124 G12 (much more popular among racers than ES32). It may be true that ES32 is a very British invention, but only ONE Britton reached the Semis (with 24 racers). Only Brian Saunders has an excuse: he ran in technical problems. All other British racers, except for James Cleave and Adam LeMaistre, were just too slow. But also the Italians - those other advocates of ES32 racing - were nowhere. Of them only Piero 'Il Ban-dito' Castricone and Paolo Trigilio reached the Semis. But what's wrong with Trigilio, still so convincing at the German Masters in Minden. He promised a total come-back this year after his weak 2003 season, but up to now he was even not the shadow of the excellent scale racer he always was.
At the Qualifications the Czech army let the others the illusion that its racers could be beaten. Einari Fyhr TQ-ed in 5"046, ahead of his younger brother Matti in 5"116. Horky realised only the 11th time in 5"387 and Josef Korec the 14th time in 5"423. However, already at the heats it became obvious that the excellent Czech ES32 cars - just one class better than all other cars, except those of the Fyhr Bros and of Michael Landrud - could go a lot faster. At the heats e.g. Korec made a 5"078 lap, Horky a 5"159. 
At the heats we lost among others America's Herman James, one of the better American scale racers. But also Charlie Gooding (GB), Paolo Niccolai (I), Lee Parsons (GB), Arunas Leonavicius (LT), Ralph Parker (GB), Lasse Törn (S), Vlado Okali (SVK), Claudio Battistini (I), Graham Woodward (GB), Steve Sargent (GB), Stefan Törnfeldt (S), Kennet Signal (S), Egil Aksnes (N), Janne Ekman (S) and the very unlucky Brian Saunders (GB) missed the move to the last 24.
Of the Semi C nobody could make the move to the Main. Winner was Latvia's Rainis Jansons, ahead of Lasse Äberg (S). Here we lost also the two British entrants: Cleave and LeMaistre. In Semi B Vladimir Horky let see that his rather weak performances at the Qualifications and the Heats were just a part of his strategy. He won with 334 laps and made a best lap in 4"881 (even better than TQ). Also Pavel Flaisig (CZ) and Josef Korec (CZ) were fast enough to make the move. For Korec that was no easy task since he lost 8 laps at the second segment and had to fight until the end to let Janis Rage-Ragis (LV) behind. Among the eliminated Trigilio was unbelievable slow, especially during the first segments. Podosinoviks (LTV), Castricone (I) and Anders Gustafson were eliminated too. In Semi A one of the favourites, Matti Fyhr (SF) had back luck, since his car ran in problems during the second segment. Vojtik (CZ) and Prokop (SVK) were also eliminated. Winner here was Horky (CZ) ahead of Landrud (S), Krcil (CZ), Rosenberg (CZ) and Einari Fyhr (SF), all five making the move to the Main.

So we had a Main Final with no less than 6 Czech racers plus Michael Landrud (S) and Einari Fyhr (SF). At the first segments Pavel Flaisig was causing a stir, since he was setting the pace. After 2 segments we noted 1. Flaisig 111 laps, 2. Landrud 109, 3. Fyhr 106, 4. Korec 106, 5. Horky 105. During the third segment local Michael Landrud could pass Flaisig to take the lead. Situation was now 1. Landrud 164, 2. Flaisig 163, 3. Fyhr 161, 4. Horky 161, 5. Korec 160, 6. Krcil 159, 7. Karlik 159, 8. Rosenberg 156. Double drama during the fourth segment since both Einari Fyhr (loosing 9 laps) as Landrud (loosing 16 laps) had to come into the pits. With Flaisig loosing several laps on lane 8 we had at once two new leaders: Horky & Korec, followed at 3 laps by Krcil, at 5 by Karlik & Flaisig. With Rosenberg as 6th we had the 6 Czech racers at mid-race at the 6 first places. During the 5th segment Horky can catch the lead, followed in the same lap by Krcil and at 1 lap by Korec. Flaisig is 4 laps down, Karlik 5, Rosenberg 8, Fyhr 11, Landrud 15.  During the 6th segment Korec takes the lead with Horky & Krcil 2 laps down. Struggle for victory is restricted to these 3 racers. Landrud looses again 15 laps in the pits. During the 7th segment Korec can increase his advance over Korec to 3 laps. Krcil is passed by Flaisig coming in the same lap as Horky. During a breath-taking last segment Horky comes bit by bit closer to Horky, coming eventually in the same lap. But Korec resists his learn-master until the finish, winning his second consecutive EuroNats. Krcil succeeded to pass Flaisig to take the third place, 6 laps down to winner Korec. Then followed Flaisig, Karlik and Rosenberg, with 6 Czech racers at the 6 first places. [JPVR]

13th ISRA F1 CHAMPIONSHIP - LUND (S) - Aug 10-11

MATTI FYHR BEATS EINARI FYHR

BRITISH F1 SPECIALISTS (SIC) NOWHERE JUST AS ITALIANS

August 12 - During the 1980s and early 1990s 132F1 racing was mainly restricted to racers from the UK, Italy, RSA, New Zealand, France and Spain. It was no international class, and that was the reason that the ISRA F1 Races were not considered as an IOC event. But during the second half of the 1990s racers from Czechia, Scandinavia, the Baltic States and even Russia were trying 132F1. That let us decide an upgrading of the ISRA F1 races up from 1997. Unfortunately we couldn't find the resultys of 1998 (Riga) and 1999 (Toronto). If some racers should have the top-8 results, please mail them to jppro@pandora.be so that we can complete the IOC-list.
In Lund - where the online info is excellent and where the organisation seems as perfect as at Helsinky 2000 - 68 racers entered the F1 race. At the heats we lost Mangi Prokop (SVK), Graham Woodward (GB), Adam LeMaistre (GB), Steve Sergent (GB), Ralph Parker (GB), Vlado Okali (SVK), Stefan Törnfeldt (S), "Gugu" Bernardino (BR), Einar Viira (EE) and Kennet Signal (S). So we went to the 3 Semis with 24 racers, among them the Czechs Vladimir Horky, Josef Korec, Petr Krcil, Jiri Karlik, Tomas Rosenberg, Pavel Flaisig, Miroslav Vadlejch and Antónin Vojtik (8 in total). Sweden, nearly new in 132F1 had Michel Landrud (2003 winner), Lasse Äberg, Anders Gustafson, Janne Ekman, Torbjörn Wägman, Michael Gustavvson, Michael Landrud (6 in total). The UK has Charlie Gooding, Brian Saunders and James Cleave (3 in total). Italy has Paolo Trigilio, Piero 'Il Bandito' Castricone and Paolo Niccolai (3 in total). Finland has the Fyhr Bros having realised the two fastest times at the Qualifications. The 2 remaining places are for Herman James (USA) and Janis Rage-Ragis (LV).
Nobody of Semi C succeeded to make the move. Karlik, Gooding, Wägman, Ekman, Niccolai, Vadlejch, Gustavvson, Flaisig all out. In Semi B only Cleave, Gustafson and Krcil can make the move. Rosenberg, Rage-Ragis, Horky (!!! finalist the 4 previus years), Castricone and Saunders are out (the two last with tech bothers). In Semi A Trigilio falls out after 81 laps. Korec has an impossible car and is out with James. Matti Fyhr, Äberg, Vojtik, Einari Fyhr and Landrud make the move. Rarely a Main final was dominated as did Matti Fyhr. He won ahead of Einari Fyhr and Michael Landrud. The lonely F1 Britton was ...8th.[JPVR]

13th SCALE PRODUCTION 124 WORLD CUP - LUND (S) - Aug 7-9

FYHR BROS (SF) WIN JUST AS IN 2000

Pictures first row courtesy to Carsten Grønnemann

At the ISRA Worlds in Sweden's Lund the results of the team race were predictable, as I wrote earlier. The race ended as in 2000 with Einari Fyhr/Matti Fyhr (SF) winning their second world cup ahead of the three times winners Josef Korec/Vladimir Horky (CZ) and Janis Rage-Ragis/Andris Podosinoviks (LV). In 2000 the Latvian team finished second and the Czech team third. In a field fillers competition where more than 80 % of the entrants are not at their place Michael Landrud/Janne Ekman (S) finished fourth. A second Czech duo Thomas Rosenberg/Pavel Flaisig - having finished fourth last year was now fifth. There were nearly no surprises except for the fine sixth place of Mikael Gustavsson/ Torbjörn Wägman (S) and the ninth place of Peter Rousing/Steen Michaelsen.  The Italian and British teams disappointed. Castricone/Santarelli came not further than 11th, Bertocchi/Bat-tistini not further than 19th and Italy's top team Trigilio/Niccolai was only 28th. The British top team Gooding/Cleave finished even one place deeper (29th). But also Saunders/Parsons performed far under their intrinsic value (16th). Also disappointing was the performance of "Gugu" Bernardino and Lasse Äberg (BR/S) finishing 15th. There were 52 teams (104 racers) at the start. Fine performances were noted by Borch/Söndergard (13th) and Milos Hojer/Martin Hojer (8th). Jiri Karlik/Petr Krcil, now finishing 7th were expected finishing some places higher, just as Törnfeldt/Gustafson (10th). [JPVR]